Advertisement

schmidt hammer lassen: Sketches

September 11, 2012 /

"The sketch is the most simplified way to tell a building, in
its simplicity far better than words. A sketch, despite and maybe
exactly because of its rough simplicity and rapid attempt, is by
far the most advanced and efficient way to initiate the process of
establishing an architectural object.

Asked what a given architectural project is all about, the
sketches you started out with often very clearly point out the
founding principles. This is also the case with the new Art Museum
of Aarhus; an almost endless row of drawings repeating and renewing
themselves, showing a cubic, static and closed monolith opened up
by various modern attempts. A sharp-edged monumental building
halfway dug into a descending ground, cut through by an organically
curved vertical section, and in correspondence to this vertical
section, a horizontal cut.

The sketches are all about the elementary vocabulary concerning
the project; how to divide a cube, the shape of a curve, a facade
carried by columns, where to put the functions and the
characteristics of the site.

After the seemingly lightness of the sketches with their heavy
luggage of visions of 'how it could be', sometimes one is fortunate
to be allowed to pursue the project all the way to realization.
Fortunately this applies for the new Art Museum of Aarhus."
schmidt hammer lassen